Local fishermen are lamenting the outbreak, as the Coalition looks to sink the problem under the $15 million National Carp Control Plan, which aims to reduce carp by 95 per cent by 2045.

Tamworth fishing fanatic Sarah Easey is calling on new measures to help control the spread of the invasive species. She went fishing at Bora Crossing with friends on Saturday and caught 19 carp – not one native fish –  in a matter of hours.

“In the first five minutes, we caught three carp,” Mrs Easey said.

“We put four lines out and they were all going off with carp. As a little girl, I remember pulling in a lot of eel-tailed catfish, a couple of cod and the odd carp – but now it’s mainly carp.”

Mrs Easey fears native fish will become even more sparse if drastic control measures aren’t introduced quickly, suggesting a payment system for catching carp, which could be turned into fertiliser.

 Deputy Prime Minister and agricultural minister Barnaby Joyce understood “the very real damage” carp were causing to New England waterways.

“These fish are literally choking our waterways and our wallets, to death,” a spokesman for Mr Joyce said.

“The total biomass of carp in our waterways is estimated between 500,000 and 2 million tonnes.

“Current control methods such as trapping and commercial fishing are both expensive and largely ineffective in controlling the spawning European carp populations over large areas or for any length of time.

“But we are doing something about it through the Coalition’s $15 million National Carp Control Plan.”

The plan outlines the intended release of a carp-specific biological control agent to achieve a 95 per cent reduction in carp by 2045 at an acceptable cost. The earliest possible release date for carp herpes virus is late 2018.

Researchers from five states are collaborating to develop an international best-practice method to determine the total biomass of carp in Australia’s waterways.